Lost
by CatBru
Summary: Er, not what I usually write, but Aeryn wouldn't let me NOT write it. Its a brief look into one of her less... sane moments. Set Pre-Promises.


Title: Lost  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. Never have. Never will. Probably screw 'em up worse than they already are.  
  
Author's Notes: I actually rewrote this piece on paper before I typed it up. I'm quite pleased how she turned up. Mua hah hah! Fear me as I test new waters in this 'writing' thing! Er, and this isn't like the other's I've written... Not humerous. Well, I guess if you twist your brain and squint, it could be funny...  
  
Setting: Just before 'Promise.'  
  
Beta: Oooh! I actually have one this time! Thanks to YamiMarita for help on this one!  
  
Summary: I've read many pieces where John is crazy, but none really about Aeryn losing it. Maybe I just haven't been looking hard enough?  
  
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Shaky limbs cast aside the musty blanket, fingers scrambling over the rumpled bed linens beneath. She groaned when she found nothing, at least not what she was looking for. Pillows get tossed to the floor, but they hide nothing and she finds herself on her hands and knees, because she remembers him telling her once-  
  
who was it, him or the other, dead or alive, or was it both, before the split, she couldn't remember, couldn't keep hold of her thoughts they just flew away where was he why wasn't he here he should be here he had to catch her before she fell because she didn't want to keep falling anymore she just wanted to be safe  
  
-that when he had still been on Earth, everything he owned somehow manage to wind up underneath his bed.  
  
Certainly, things hadn't changed that much for the human. Clothing - some he hadn't worn in cycles, others she couldn't even remember him ever wearing - lay scattered among boxes and trinkets, odds and ends. Her hand closed around the soft material of an old grey t-shirt, which she carefully brought to her nose to see if she would get lucky and catch his scent. She tried several different places - the stomach, the arm, the neck, the back - but couldn't find it-  
  
when had he worn it last, he used to wear it all the time and she had teased him for wearing nothing else but that shirt and he had just smiled and teased back asking if he should wear leathers instead then but the leather was uncomfortable and restricting so he'll keep the shirt thank you very much and aren't you one to talk Aeryn Sun  
  
-so she tossed it aside, disappointed that time had erased his scent.  
  
She kept looking long after she forgot what is was she was so desperately trying to find. She became frantic in her search as she pulled out the boxes and toys and books and knick-knacks, creating random piles of oddities around her, feeling her mind slowly escape her-  
  
flashes of John, of the dead and the living, floated across her mind slowly at first then building to a whirlwind of dizzying emotions and memories and images until the lines she had forced herself to draw between alive and dead became blurred and she couldn't make them out and they were all just John, neither one different from the other both the same and  
  
-and there was nothing to do but keep looking. She knew she'd have to go back to... where she had been before, but she didn't want to go back there, couldn't remember where there was even if she did..  
  
She felt a presence behind her and saw his shadow fall over her shoulder and she flinched away. She hated this man, despised him as she loved another, but why she couldn't remember. Slowly she turned to face him, still crouched on the ground surrounded by the mess she'd made of Crichton's life, his possessions, hiding behind a shield of long hair that obscured most of her leather-clad form from his view.  
  
"Officer Sun, you are weak. You must return to Moya's cooling chamber." Scorpius knelt beside her in the mess, reaching out the grasp her elbow. She flinched away, pushing back against the soft edge of the mattress. His sophisticated voice did little to calm her nerves, serving instead to agitate her further. "Come now, why have you left the chamber? You know that the longer you stay away, the worse you get and the longer it takes to get your symptoms under control."  
  
She eyed the mess, trying to find it. "I-I was looking for something. Of John's. But um-I uh, I can't remember what." Her voice shook, and she hated it, hated herself for showing weakness in front of this abomination. "I hate you."  
  
"Yes you do." His voice was calm and strong and though it made her ill, though it crept along her spine in the most vile of ways, she latched onto it, trying to absorb the strength she was lacking.  
  
"Why do I hate you? Please tell me."  
  
"You hate me because I tortured your human and implanted a neural chip into his brain. You hate me because I chased all of you down in my attempts to retrieve the chip. You also hate me," he leaned in close then, as one would do to a buddy, telling a humorous secret. "Because it was I who rescued you."  
  
"Then why haven't I killed you yet?" This was asked not out of malice, but with a need for the answer. She hated the empty blanks in her mind, unable to remember how to fill them in.  
  
"Because I have slowed the process of the Heat Delirium until a cure could be procured in exchange for asylum." He reached to her to place a leather-gloved hand in her hair, but she pushed him away, because he wasn't allowed to touch her hair. "Do you remember this, Officer Sun?"  
  
Brief flashes of memory skirt around her jumbled mind, but they were too fragmented to make any sense. "Where's John?"  
  
"I was actually on my way to deliver the news when I found you missing. Pilot has received word from General Ka D'Argo. He and the others - Crichton included - are on their way back to Moya. They will meet us in this nebula within the Solar Day." He regarded her softly for a moment before standing up. "Do you remember what it is you were looking for now?"  
  
She turned her eyes to the mess before her, trying to find answers in a pair of old Calvin's. "I- ah, there's this um..." Slowly an image came into blurred focus in her mind. "John had a journal. H-he kept in on... Talyn? Or was it here? Before he - Before we came back to Moya, or after, and he was trying to teach me to um... understand him. To learn his English"  
  
"Some how I doubt learning a language will help in the understanding of John Crichton." The half-Scarran removed something from the inside of a box, handing the rough-covered book to her. "Is that what you are looking for?"   
  
Tears sprung to her eyes as she reached for it. Gently she took it, running reverent fingers down the textured spine, and she nodded as she clutched the journal to her chest.  
  
"Good." This time when Scorpius reached for her elbow, she allowed him to stand her up. "If we do not get you back now, you will be in no shape to see John when he returns. You do wish to see John, don't you?"  
  
Wiping her tears, she nodded again, and allowed him to lead her to the door. She turned back suddenly, breaking away and she began to pick up discarded clothing. "We have to clean up, he won't like that we've made a mess of his things."  
  
"Officer Sun, I doubt Crichton will notice."  
  
Finally she allowed herself to be led out of the room, casting one last look back. Looking at the mess she made, she promised herself that later she would help him clean it up-  
  
do you love Aeryn Sun, I don't hurt I did some good things I'm proud of my life and I'm with you, beyond hope, we're in the hands of fate now, I'm sorry you never got to meet my dad my real dad I'm sorry I never met your dad I'm sorry about a lot of things, I can't let the one thing I love fly away in a crappy little ship, you made me a better person, what like that side up you stay, hands of fate, do you love John Crichton, I'm very angry, you want fate I got fate, I would have gone to Earth, don't make me say good-bye and don't make me stay, I am so much better dead, don't worry about me I've never felt better, good-bye John Crichton  
  
-but until then, she had the journal.  
  
-End  
  
13 June 2004 


End file.
